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Post by MsAli on Sept 18, 2018 9:49:08 GMT -5
Our negative thoughts can create anxiety, anger, resentment, jealousy—an array of emotions. Negative thinking is normal. However, if this way of thinking becomes incessant, it can lead to depression and self-destructive behavior like addictions, derailing us from what we want most in life. At minimum, negative thinking saps our energy, erodes our self-confidence and can put us in a bad mood. Certainly, many would agree that our thoughts come and go so quickly that it’s seems impossible to notice them, but with awareness and an attitude of self-compassion, we can redirect our negative thoughts to more positive ones.
Two Wolves is a Cherokee Indian legend and illustrates the most important battle of our lives – the one between our good and bad thoughts. Here is how the story goes:
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.
“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
Our thoughts can be our own worst enemy. That is, if we let them. Think about how you may be “feeding” your negative thoughts by allowing them to rule your mind. Next time you have a negative thought, catch it and ask yourself, “What is this thought doing for me?” You will find that the answer is that all they are doing is disempowering you. You can immediately feel more empowered by focusing on something good in your life and cultivate the practice of gratitude.
We can create greater peace, confidence and a more positive outlook by learning how to manage our thoughts. After all, this battle can be won because we have the power of choice!
Which wolf are you feeding? Remember, you always have a choice…
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Post by 1dave on Sept 19, 2018 1:22:02 GMT -5
What Do You See?
What do you see, nurses, what do you see, what are you thinking when you're looking at me? A crabby old woman, not very wise, uncertain of habit, with faraway eyes.
A crabby old woman who in bed I do lie Who dribbles her food and makes no reply Who seems not to notice the things that you do, and forever is losing a stocking or shoe.
Who, resisting or not, lets you do as you will with bathing and feeding, the long day to fill. Is that what you're thinking? Is that what you see? Then open your eyes, nurse you're not looking at me.
I'll tell you who I am as I sit here so still, as I use at your bidding, as I eat at your will. I'm a small child of ten with a father and mother, brothers and sisters, who love one another.
A young girl of sixteen, with wings on her feet, dreaming that soon now a lover she'll meet. A bride soon at twenty -- my heart gives a leap, remembering the vows that I promised to keep.
At twenty-five now, I have young of my own who need me to guide and a secure happy home. A woman of thirty, my young now grown fast, bound to each other with ties that should last.
At forty my young sons have grown and are gone, but my man's beside me to see I don't mourn. At fifty once more babies play round my knee, again we know children, my loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me, my husband is dead I look at the future, I shudder with dread. For my young are all rearing young of their own, and I think of the years and the love that I've known.
I'm now an old woman and nature is cruel 'this jest to make old age look like a fool. The body, it crumbles, grace and vigor depart, there is now a stone where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass a young girl still dwells, and now and again my battered heart swells. I remember the joys, I remember the pain, and I'm loving and living life over again.
I think of the years - all too few, gone too fast - and accept the stark fact that nothing can last. So open your eyes, nurses, open and see, not a crabby old woman look closer -- see ME!!
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Post by MsAli on Sept 20, 2018 10:23:27 GMT -5
You must speak straight so that your words may go as sunlight into our hearts. ~Cochise (“like Ironweed”) Chisicahau Chief
Did someone ever say something to you that stuck with you years later? Words have the power to raise us up to the highest peak and take us down to the lowest valley. Maybe you’ve had the chance to lift a friend, family member, co-worker or even a stranger up from the depths of despair, pain or loneliness solely with your heartfelt, caring words. Just as we can scar someone for life with these simple words, “You can’t do that” or “You’re not good enough”, we can change the course of someone else’s life with, “Go for it; you’ll succeed at whatever you do!”
Words can be especially strong coming from an authority figure like a teacher or parent. What was said to you as a child, can follow you around like a shadow years later. You may not have pursued a dream because of those words. It’s that serious. Our words can impact others far beyond what we think they do.
Take for example a story that aired recently on CBS News about Principal Joseph “Gabe” Sonnier of Port Barre Elementary school in Louisiana. He has a smile larger than life and a job he loves. He’s new to the principal position, but not to the school. Gabe started out as the school’s janitor, a job he held for 27 years. One day, during his time as janitor, then-Principal Westley Jones pulled him aside and said:
“I’d rather see you grading papers than picking them up.”
Gabe said that he “took those words to heart,” recalling that no one had ever believed in him that much. This became a defining moment in his life. So at the age of 39, while he continued being the school’s janitor, Gabe decided to pursue a teaching degree. Shortly after graduating college, he got his first job as a teacher at Port Barre. He later earned a Master’s in Science and Education from Arkansas State University.
Gabe’s lesson for all is: “Don’t let your situation that you’re in now define what you’re going to become later. It’s not where you start, it’s how you finish.”
Words have the power to discourage, humiliate, and hurt us but can also encourage, heal, inspire, and transform us. Being mindful of our words and their sometimes lasting effect on others is one of the kindness acts we can do for each another.
What words have left a lasting effect on you?
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Post by MsAli on Sept 21, 2018 16:19:07 GMT -5
Learning Self-Forgiveness From An Act of Kindness Undelivered
--by penny4them, posted Sep 21, 2018
A couple days ago, my 9-year-old son and I were grocery shopping. At the check out, a mother was trying to understand her bill. She didn't have enough money for her milk and cheese. The grocery store manager removed the items from her cart and carried them away to the refrigerator section.
My son and I watched, trying not to intrude. We smiled at her little boy, who was perhaps 2-years-old. His beautiful brown eyes and bright smile--his deepening gaze filled my heart while it simultaneously broke at what was unfolding.
There have been times I myself didn't have money to buy groceries my family needed, but today was different. It was payday so there we stood inline with our groceries.
I whispered to my son and told him to run and get the manager back with the items. He was confused. He didn't understand me. I was trying to do an act of kindness, but it went wrong.
The lady left with her son and fewer groceries than she had planned. I told the checkout guy to charge me for her milk and cheese and that we'd run to the parking lot and catch her. He said "You'd do that?" and I said "Yes, I've been there before and want to make sure they have what they need."
He quickly called the manager back, rang up my items and hers and my son and I ran to the parking lot where we thought we would find her buckling her son into the car.
That was the plan.
But the mom and her son were gone. I have no idea where they went. They were gone in 60 seconds and with them went my opportunity to gift these measly but necessary items.
My son and I walked around the parking lot--dazed, perplexed...sad--asking other shoppers if they had seen them.
No one had.
We were too late.
We had a lovely conversation with another mother in the parking lot. She said that it's people like me that give her hope, but I didn't feel like hope at all. I felt ashamed and terrible for not speaking up and telling her what I wanted to do for her, so I wouldn't miss the chance for kindness.
I kept thinking about my hesitation: because I didn't want to embarrass her, didn't want to cause a fuss... because I was worried about 10 days time and my future grocery trips. All reasons my mind was working to convince me of, to hold back a necessary kindness. Even though I didn't believe any of them, processing them slowed me down.
My son and I got into our car with our groceries...and hers. We felt awful. He said it was his fault for not running and getting the manager back. Another mindmade untruth.
So here we are a few days later, drinking milk that should be filling that little boy; staring at undelivered--unkinded--intended cheese in my fridge that we will eat because it is there.
So I ask myself and you dear friends, if we allow our minds to slow our actions towards acting for love and kindness, is it still an act of kindness? I think our best shot at making kindness from this story comes from the possibility of my son and I forgiving ourselves for our delay, for holding back what our hearts and hands knew to do. Perhaps because of this our future acts will be delivered with haste, as intended and necessary for love and kindness.
I send my love and intend kindness to that mama and her little one. May they have more than they need this week. I am deeply grateful for the lesson they taught me: Self forgiveness too, is an act of kindness.
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Post by 1dave on Sept 21, 2018 19:03:42 GMT -5
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Post by parfive on Sept 21, 2018 21:35:01 GMT -5
More often than not, it ain’t the same elephant.
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Post by MsAli on Oct 9, 2018 9:57:48 GMT -5
For jealous people, like dope-fiends, stoop to the lowest level and in the end inspire only disgust and loathing.
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Post by MsAli on Oct 10, 2018 11:26:17 GMT -5
Life is too short to waste any amount of time on wondering what other people think about you. In the first place, if they had better things going on in their lives, they wouldn't have the time to sit around and talk about you. What's important to me is not others' opinions of me, but what's important to me is my opinion of myself.” ― C. JoyBell C.
Recognize that it’s impossible to be fairly judged. Nobody will ever understand you perfectly. You will continually be both underestimated and overestimated, shortchanged and given undue credit.
Even with friends and family, the people whose opinion of you really matters—each of them “knows” a slightly different version of you, and you don’t get to see it! Each person in your life, even your parents, partner, and children, has incorrect and unfair beliefs about you, and you’ll never know quite what they are.
In fact, your own assessment of yourself is hardly the “right” one. We tend to either obsess over our faults or overlook them completely, and we often don’t quite appreciate both how kind and how petty we can be.
And with strangers, there’s no hope of anything approaching a fair assessment. They have zero context for what they see in you. All you can do is cultivate good qualities, such as kindness, generosity, and open-mindedness, and let the chips fall. No matter what you do, you can expect that people will be constantly mischaracterizing you in their heads (and sometimes aloud).
We can understand that kind of unfairness much more easily from the other side, by learning to become a lot more aware of our own judgments of strangers. Notice how quick and careless they are. You’ll discover that they’re almost always categorical (good person or bad person), that they’re provoked by a single behavior, and that we rarely second-guess these judgments.
Notice what it feels like to judge a person, how absolute and uncomplicated it seems, then remember that you’re seeing this person through the keyhole of a single moment in their lives.
There is a direct relationship between how quickly we judge and dismiss others, and how strongly we fear being judged or dismissed. Try it. The more agnostic you are about the true inner character of other people, the less uptight you’ll be about how you’re being perceived.
Great virtues and great faults co-exist in the same people, and every one of us, if we look inward, can see the proof.
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Post by rockpickerforever on Oct 10, 2018 13:45:51 GMT -5
"You probably wouldn't worry what people think about you if you could know how seldom they do."
-Olin Miller
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Post by amygdule on Oct 10, 2018 14:07:21 GMT -5
I used to be an Idealist until Reality smacked me in the head.
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Post by 1dave on Oct 11, 2018 1:46:46 GMT -5
I know you think you understand what you thought you heard me say, but what you don't realize is that what you heard is NOT what I meant.
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Post by amygdule on Oct 11, 2018 1:53:37 GMT -5
In one ear and out the other
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Post by MsAli on Oct 11, 2018 14:05:41 GMT -5
Anger is a poisonous emotion that comes from being hurt. When you are consumed with anger and bitterness, it hurts you at least as much as it hurts the person who has harmed you. It is as if you are filled with poison. If these feelings are not resolved, they can begin to eat you up inside. You have two choices: to stay connected to the person who hurt you by keeping these poisonous feelings alive, or to let the feelings go and forgive the person who harmed you. When you withhold forgiveness, think about who is actually being hurt. It is more than likely that the person who is filled with anger and anxiety is you, not the other person.
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Post by 1dave on Oct 11, 2018 16:37:34 GMT -5
Anger is a poisonous emotion that comes from being hurt. When you are consumed with anger and bitterness, it hurts you at least as much as it hurts the person who has harmed you. It is as if you are filled with poison. If these feelings are not resolved, they can begin to eat you up inside. You have two choices: to stay connected to the person who hurt you by keeping these poisonous feelings alive, or to let the feelings go and forgive the person who harmed you. When you withhold forgiveness, think about who is actually being hurt. It is more than likely that the person who is filled with anger and anxiety is you, not the other person. You can forgive a rattlesnake, but that does not mean making it a playmate.
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Post by MsAli on Oct 11, 2018 16:47:57 GMT -5
Anger is a poisonous emotion that comes from being hurt. When you are consumed with anger and bitterness, it hurts you at least as much as it hurts the person who has harmed you. It is as if you are filled with poison. If these feelings are not resolved, they can begin to eat you up inside. You have two choices: to stay connected to the person who hurt you by keeping these poisonous feelings alive, or to let the feelings go and forgive the person who harmed you. When you withhold forgiveness, think about who is actually being hurt. It is more than likely that the person who is filled with anger and anxiety is you, not the other person. You can forgive a rattlesnake, but that does not mean making it a playmate. Absolutely! There comes a point where the Rattlesnake has slithered away and we are the ones who keep touching the wound.
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Post by 1dave on Oct 13, 2018 9:41:11 GMT -5
What is Reality?
Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.
Revelations 3:17
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Post by amygdule on Oct 26, 2018 18:23:55 GMT -5
I never force somebody to do, I ask them first.
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Post by 1dave on Oct 27, 2018 9:04:17 GMT -5
This life is not about everything turning out alright. It is about being alright no matter how things turn out.
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Post by MsAli on Oct 31, 2018 12:12:19 GMT -5
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Post by 1dave on Oct 31, 2018 13:57:44 GMT -5
What we take gets taken.
But how could we be givers if there were no takers?
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